Karnat seemed to know the faces and names of hundreds of men, and from the way in which they answered him, gathering eagerly round, each man hoping to be noticed, it was plain that they not only respected but liked him. Almost every soldier Karnat spoke to possessed a confidence and alertness which impressed Maia. These, she felt, were real men. Beklan, of course, was not their tongue and in any case it would scarcely have been appropriate for her to converse directly with them, but here and there she made use of Zen-Kurel to ask a question or utter a few words of praise. These Terekenalters, she reflected pleasurably, saw her as herself and not as the ghost of Nokomis, of whom they knew little or nothing.
By contrast the Suban camp, along the edge of which their boat had passed that morning, was a somewhat unattractive spot. To be sure, the men were in good heart- as lively and ardent as any captain could wish-and Lenkrit and Bayub-Otal met with nothing but eager enthusiasm. There were cries of "How far to Bekla, sir?" "Tell them Terekenalters we'll show 'em the way!" and so on. Yet the whole place was so befouled and the men themselves so dirty and undisciplined that it was hard to think of them as an army. Karnat, for the most part, had received straight, soldierly answers to straight questions, but here, by and
large, the men seemed much less dear about where they belonged or what their jobs were. The diversity of weapons, too-many of them nothing but farming or forestry implements, more-or-less adapted for service-made them seem not so much like soldiers as a mob of rough, hardy men, willing enough but lacking any real training or cohesion. Several times Nasada shook his head over the filth and stench. At length, while Bayub-Otal and Lenkrit were at a little distance, talking to five or six men gathered round a grindstone, Maia saw him draw Karnat aside and begin speaking to him earnestly and emphatically. The king listened and nodded with an air of agreement.
"They'll fight well enough, you know, your majesty," said Bayub-Otal, returning. "Of course, they haven't the experience of your soldiers, but they're as keen as rats in a granary. They'll chew up the enemy all right, you'll see."
"Have you met all your officers and talked to them?" asked Karnat courteously but rather gravely.
"Those I'm leading myself I talked to this morning," replied Bayub-Otal. "I haven't met Lenkrit's officers yet- I've arranged that for tomorrow."
"Well, I'm very glad you're here, Anda-Nokomis," said the king, "and I'll be still more glad when we've won back your inheritance. I only hope you're not going to find that hand of yours a personal disadvantage, but whether or not, I know the Subans will follow you and Lenkrit: I've never had the least doubt of that."
"Don't worry, sir," answered Bayub-Otal. "If I can rule Suba left-handed, I can fight for it left-handed."
Karnat laughed, clapped him on the shoulder and began speaking about the arrangements for striking camp. Maia, startled by what she had heard, fell back a step or two and plucked Nasada's sleeve.
"Is he really going to join in the fighting?"
"So he says."
"But, Nasada, how can he, with that hand?"
"He can't be stopped. He's Ban of all Suba, you see. The men know that, and they admire him for not crying off. If he didn't at least try to lead them in battle he'd have no real chance of ruling Suba after Karnat's won."
About the effect of her own appearance in the Suban camp there was no doubt. Before they had been there three minutes a grizzled, gap-toothed man in a torn jerkin and goatskin breeches, who looked well over forty, stopped
dead in his tracks, stared at her a moment and then cried out "Lespa's stars!" Behind her, Maia could hear him jabbering excitedly to four or five others, and soon (as there would not have been, she felt, in Karnat's camp, even had her likeness been known there) a rag-tag crowd was following at their heels and men were converging from every side. Again and again came murmurs of "Nokomis!" "Nokomis!" They seemed less excited than wonder-struck- almost afraid. No one spoke directly to her or tried to question her. Becoming nervous herself of the unceasing staring, whispering and pointing, she took first Nasada's arm and then, as he turned back to her and offered it, Bayub-Otal's.
"Do they really think I'm Nokomis?" she whispered.
"They're puzzled," replied Bayub-Otal. "They don't know what to think. They can't make it out as yet, but they know you must be a sign from the gods, and that's all that matters. Tomorrow I want to present you a little more formally to the officers."
"How will they take it, d'you reckon?"
"Why, as we all do, of course," he answered. "For the best omen we could possibly have had. And when Suba's free, we'll-"
But now more soldiers were crowding round, and he broke off to speak to them. The continual, muttering excitement, together with the acrid smoke and muddy squalor of the camp, had begun to exhaust and repel her. She did not resume their conversation, and was glad when, soon after, the king called for a boat to take them back to the Star Court.
Here several people, some officers, others older men- contractors and petitioners-were waiting to speak to Kar-nat; but after listening to the first for no more than a few minutes, he broke off to ask Bayub-Otal to arrange for supper to be served within the hour. This seemed to surprise the Subans-as indeed it did Maia, since from what little she had seen of this country, the customary time for supper was either sunset or soon after, and to that it still wanted more than two hours. However, no one was going to disagree with the king, whose fine presence and gracious manners gave him a natural authority accepted by everyone; and Maia had hardly had time to wash the mud from her feet and rinse her eyes and mouth (which felt gritty) before Zen-Kurel was outside the door of the ladies' quar-
ters, presenting his majesty's compliments and hoping that the young saiyett would do the king the honor of sitting near him at supper. It was this that had first made her begin to wonder what his personal feelings might be, but by the time the fruit and rather insipid sweetmeats had been served, she had decided that his warmth stemmed from nothing more than diplomacy. She was the luck of Suba and he was treating her accordingly.
The same, however, could certainly not be said of the young staff officer, Zen-Kurel. He was plainly fascinated by her. Throughout supper he had talked to her warmly and freely in his excellent Beklan, partly about his military service and close connection with the king and partly about her night crossing of the Valderra, which he obviously thought showed great courage on her part. If that was what he chose to think, Maia had no wish to disillusion him. She told him nothing of what had really happened and, as soon as she could, led him on to tell her something of himself. His mother, now dead, had been a Beklan girl (a shearna, she somehow suspected) who had married a Ka-trian baron, Zen-Bharsh-Kraill. They had apparently met in Dari-Paltesh, though he did not say how. He himself had never lived in Bekla, though as a child he had spent several years in Dari. "Of course, that was long before the king occupied Suba." His father was getting on now. One day he would have to go home and take over the running of the family estate in northern Katria. "But not too soon, I hope," he said. "Soldiering-it's a wonderful life, especially now I'm actually with the king. I don't want to stay at home and breed goats-not yet. Or even get married," he added, smiling.
"No, that's dull," said Maia. "Breeding goats, I mean," she added.
Zen-Kurel laughed. "I'm sure you had something better to do in Bekla than breed goats, hadn't you?"